Is it a harder feat in sports to win a conference championship or to acknowledge said championship doesn't help you reach your goals?

And if winning that championship doesn't help a team grow closer to its destination, does the title even matter?

That's the dilemma the CSU women's basketball team began to face after beating Fresno State 70-56 on Wednesday night at Moby Arena. The win put the Rams in the driver's seat for their second consecutive regular-season Mountain West championship to guarantee them a spot in the Women's NIT.

Like last season, CSU doesn't want the NIT. It's a consolation to the grand prize of playing in the program's first NCAA tournament since 2002, and the only way to earn that blue ribbon is by winning three games in the Mountain West tournament next month in Las Vegas.

"More than likely, we're a one-bid league, so if we won a conference championship, that would be great. It's a goal for us, there's no doubt about it, but there's a bigger goal, and that's to get to the NCAA tournament," CSU coach Ryun Williams said. "Do these last (four) games mean anything? They mean everything, obviously, you want to have nice momentum to finish out the year and play good basketball.

"As a coach, you take a lot more pride in winning a league championship than you doing getting hot for three games (and winning a conference tournament). Although, that is a coach speaking."

And that's the struggle.

CSU is the best team in the Mountain West and was last year, but one slip-up in the conference tournament and the metric of success its season is measured by is essentially devalued. While on the other hand, if Air Force (2-24, 1-14 MW) got lucky and went on a four-game run in Las Vegas, the Falcons would take the league's only bid to the NCAA tournament.

"It's kind of BS, honestly. I don't understand the point of that," CSU guard Gritt Ryder said. "But you can also say the teams that (peak) at that point, they're the ones that play the best going into the NCAA tournament. But, yeah, it's super frustrating because last year, we were definitely the best team and then — yeah."

Yeah. A word Ryder and fellow senior A.J. Newton would rather not use to sum up this season.

The process of the conference tournament champion receiving the automatic bid to the NCAAs isn't unfair. It's the industry norm. In men's basketball, there's a men's team from a smaller conference every year that has an incredible season, but gets upset in its league tournament and is forced to play in the NIT, while the Cal Polys of the world with records below .500 go dancing.

That's not to say it's not unfortunate, but it's fair. The only difference where CSU is concerned is the Mountain West's place in women's college basketball's pecking order. It's near the bottom, which, compared with how football and men's basketball have grown to be respected, is shocking to the casual observer.

Of 33 conferences, the Mountain West's Rating Percentage Index ranks 21st. While CSU (No. 69) and Fresno State (54) have respectable RPI rankings, no other "major" college basketball league has such a large discrepancy between its overall men's RPI (No. 12) and women's than the Mountain West.

So what would CSU winning the regular season conference title mean?

Well, the 2015 championship banner in Moby Arena would be a nice addition, but that's about it. The Rams could finish third and have just as good of a shot to reach the NCAA tournament, and they know it.

CSU isn't interested in another trip to the WNIT. It's NCAAs or bust.
